Call to tackle political corruption

The Government has been urged to make a serious effort to tackle political corruption following the jailing of lobbyist Frank Dunlop this morning.

The former government press secretary was this morning jailed for two years and fined €30,000 for corruption after bribing councillors to re-zone land around Dublin for lucrative development deals. The final six months of the jail term has been suspended.

The Irish chapter of anti-corruption organisation Transparency International (TI) today said that rather than being an end to the matter, the sentencing of Dunlop should represent the first step in tackling systemic corruption.

The chief executive of TI Ireland, John Devitt, said that all alleged bribe-takers should be prosecuted where there is sufficient evident for a case to be brought. He also pointed to the need for whistleblower protection for anyone who reports an issue of public concern and called for a register of lobbyists to shine more light on the role of money on government policy making.

“Government may be tempted to believe that this prosecution, while welcome, draws a line in the sand. The sad reality is that eight local politicians [three of whom are deceased] were also accused of taking bribes from rogue developers via Dunlop.

"If we are to prevent the same thing happening again, the Government has to commit itself to introducing comprehensive whistleblower legislation for all employees together with a register of lobbyists,” said Mr Devitt.

Dunlop, who was expected to be taken to Dublin's Mountjoy prison later today, was originally charged with 16 counts of bribing Dublin county councillors. In January, he guilty to five sample counts of corruption.

Widespread corruption is believed to have badly damaged the country’s reputation overseas. Ireland‘s score on the worldwide Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which measures perceptions of corruption in 180 countries worsened dramatically in the wake of revelations at the Planning Tribunal. In 1995, Ireland’s score on the corruption league table was 8.57 out of 10, with a score of 10 denoting a country free of corruption. By 2002 that score had dropped to 6.9.

Since then, Ireland’s rating has rebounded and last year Ireland was ranked in 16th place in the least corrupt countries with a score of 7.7.